


you dug a grave for two

by nychta



Category: Villains Series - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Character Death, Character Study, Fic Graveyard, Mortality, Religion, Religious Conflict, Resurrection, Shooting, eli and victor remain preschool children, the rest of the cast is only mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21614449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nychta/pseuds/nychta
Summary: one, two thuds.a dead thud, between victor & eli, in a lonely cemetery.after all, corpses tend to be drawn to graveyards.
Relationships: Eli Cardale | Eli Ever/Victor Vale
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25





	you dug a grave for two

**Author's Note:**

> victor has a need to vandalize; eli has gone myopic; marcella is snoring.  
> beware with both vicious and vengeful spoilers.

_into The abyss I’m tempted_   
_where the Sun shines dark_   
_**where** voices rise silent_   
_into that soft abyss_   
_I’m tempted -Again_

Poetry can be repetitive, just like that. Just a flung whisper of dazzling words that sad hearts will cry for. Oh, joy. How dull.

Vandalized poetry, however, _that_ implies something else. Victor knows it best: the intoxicating scent of an overused marker, the black scrawled over meaningless charms, the rustle of page after page. Even back then, when his intellect promised triumph in Lockland University, he savored the pastime like the night would savor another shadow: relentless. No business from a pre-med student, but still, an actual reason for a lip teased up. He missed those days; not the university that brimmed bright with ambitious minds, but the snap of adrenaline whenever a judgeful eye would rest on his “artwork”. Or the feigned scandal on Eli’s pair of blinks; he was well-mannered to the sight. And to feign: perfection, to be precise. Those were the days of suspense, to lunge upon little seconds of a more sombre mirror of his friend. 

Friend was too dull a term, though. Likewise was the affair shared with poetry.

He should scrap a few more paragraphs later, Victor thought as he tossed dirt in for the newborn grave. Marcella Morgan would have some sweet, sweet sleep. _Finally_. Who better than Victor and Eli to tend after it?

Earth smudged far more than his hands; but the nasty pungence in his nostrils. He gripped the shovel tighter and looked up at Eliot. Vandalized poetry stirred calm in Victor, perhaps some apathy from Eli. For a fragment, he wondered if he would remember and stirr Eliot out of his flawless composure.

“I would have never figured to see Marcella here,” Eli confessed, fingers stippled on the handle. Words easy, frail, as if he hadn’t agreed to the premature burial for instance. Too much of a saint, even in the darkest night for them to grind down on a mutual nuisance.

“I was hoping to kill her here,” Victor voiced instead. Eli didn’t leap his glance up, yet Victor caught the fine line of his mouth twitch slightly. The Merit Cemetery was the clenched accordion for a fine trail of tragedies: over there, moss had entirely stained a miserable name from sight; look a little ahead and you would find the slope of mud where anyone might slip down and suffer a concussion; for good time’s sake, _Barry Lynn_ remained the bitter reminder of a certain incident.

Sydney had aided into pulling breath back into Lynn’s lungs -Eli had grinded his teeth upon the unexpected return. It felt like a good memory, under a lonely night meant for two begrimed diggers. If only Victor could _feel_ more. 

Suddenly, Eli slackened his grip over his shovel and lifted up a shoulder to rub the side of his face against. Ahead, where spite boiled the highest, Victor teased, “Save the tears for her actual funeral, Eli.” _Hopefully, for yours. Too._

Dead and gone, Marcella was the border about to tip for the crossfire: at least until they finished burying the body, hours apart. 

“It’s not that, my cheek itches,” Under the moon’s smile, he quipped, restless. “And it seems I’ll have to get a new pair of glasses: I can see all the earth just right, but you’re a blur at times.”

“Not that you would complain about that?”

“Not at all,” Eli agreed solemnly, and despite the rancor that brew sonant in each cut syllable, Victor liked him for once for his honesty. Because that was the quality proposed for heroes like Eli, over the red that stained his - _their_ \- hands, over the suicide attempts that had plunged him - _them_ \- deep so many nights ago, in a cold tub. Victor entertained the thought of a lovely reminder, but he found himself grown exhausted of past resentments: that’s what other friends did, reminisce. But then again, they had their present to scratch for, teeth and tongue.

Hands weary, eyes cold, Victor quit as well, and allowed his shoulders to slump, his dirtied fingers to slide down his pockets. Must be a sharp contrast, him the palest in between. Thirty-seven years and counting meant for unreserved and unresolved quarrels had served their part to stiffen the lock of his jaw and the lines of his frown. Long wasted were his years of glorious youth; what to lament for them, though? Hereby he stood, constant. Somewhere, his parents were likely off to pitch emotional motivation for wracked brains like his, off into the clashed and ever-growing economy. Victor hoped they would rise and plummet down and hard in sales after a week.

High were the possibilities that they would never know his decade in prison; and if they did, it would flit by unacknowledged, as they always did. They wouldn’t know his son had hardened into this heap of black clothes into a sea of rushing doctors and uniformed geniuses. See to their ignorance when he couldn’t find himself to care? Gladly. They would never know of Mitch and Sydney, seven streets away and stashed into a cheap hotel from Merit. 

As the wind tousled the ends of his pale blond hair, he would intently linger his eyes on Eli. Both Mitch and Sydney would likely be awaiting into the night, for his safe return -to distract him with useless flicks and warm hot chocolate. Trivial it functioned, for his intellect depended on the productivity of a schedule cramped tight by the authorities _and_ Eli. However, he could only keep all fruitless distraction -kind Mitch and stubborn Sydney- alive through the dirt on his palms, guaranteed to cloud Eli’s initial purpose for at least one night. Precisely the time needed for him to fold his coat and swerve back into the runaway tracks with Mitch and Sydney. The scene of his prison-mate and a teenage stray bonded by idle guffaws urged his back to bend for the shovel.

Overhead, he heard the faint whistle of a religious-like tune from past Eli’s lips. Victor rolled his eyes; he knew the verses well from his sophomore years, courtesy of Eli’s prayers at night. So close to you, I could almost touch i- “ ´He is here.´ That’s how it went, right?”

Eli blinked, bright eyes wide. Good: now he held his attention. “You remember?”

“You always whispered it when nerves arrived,” Victor reminded him, and tapped two fingers against his temple. “It was your equivalent to counting until ten: took you only ten seconds of singing to Him to calm down and smile ahead. Nice, no? You dedicate ten seconds for Him, and Him only, and He takes away your jitters.” Fingers snapped. He was all Eli could see. “Just like that.”

“Vic, you’re confusing biological effects with faith.” As if Eli hadn’t sputtered delusions the moment he rose back to life, grateful to Him, because Him had granted another chance and a power at hand. When the only Him who had accompanied Eli had been Victor. “Sure do, faith can reassure your mentality in most situations, but the rest is up to how well you know your body.” Either to prove his point, or to brag, he dragged his palm over the sharp edge of a brand-new grave. The rest was just like history unfolded: blood brushed the curve of his tanned skin for a cut to bloom through, a similar count to mere seconds, and it stitched. “See?”

“I had the faith that you would realize Him wouldn’t heal all those scars on your back.” Then did Eli wince. Years ago, Victor would have backtracked. “Yet here we are, and you seem to heal just fine, just by yourself. Congratulations on your lucrative death, Cardale.”

Eli inhaled sharply. A nerve strung. “Fifteen years and you haven’t changed. Not at all.” Then he swung his hand to his side and by the time he held the gun down, the bullet had rang across the dark. 

_bang_

“What the fuck-” Victor cursed through gritted teeth: red quivered his knee down into mud, where pain doubled upon the tear on his shin. He eased his breath as he dialed the throb lower, and lower into strained numb, into dull bliss. His fingers twitched along; Eli stepped closer and for a second the sting blew its final kiss. He looked up just in time. "No need for glasses now, huh?"

“It’s never about God, nor what you can do: it’s about me. It’s always been.” Eli tsked and the sound seemed to settle nicely in his tongue, as if he had rehearsed so for their next rendezvous. “You spin in the same thought over and over, always with my picture in it. Remember back then in Lockhand, when we weren’t sure if our powers were related to our persona? I prayed to Him before I died in that tub, Victor.” He curved an eyebrow at Victor, paler under the moonlight and at a loss of blood. “Were you thinking of me before the electroshock? Is that why you revolve around pain, over and over?”

Victor Vale had been pondering on useless triumph, on the adrenaline that threatened to pump out from his veins. On the fright sketched over Angie’s lovely features as she turned the dial higher and higher into black nothing. For once, he hadn’t spared the thought for Eliot.

Thus why he didn’t answer; instead, spat up.

Eli grimaced with evident disappointment. “You wonder too much, yet you have little faith: it’s not about whether we would succeed, not now. I trust Him to watch over me whenever I do my job, Victor.”

“Your job is so unreliable that you trusted your homicides to Serena Clarke. And look, now she’s dead.”

“You are so unreliable that a fucking teenager has to watch over you.” Eli raised his foot and he stomped on Victor’s leg. Hard. “And Angie’s dead, too. Who should I blame for both of them?”

A wince ruined the cold restraint held by Victor; not much for the body count, but because Eli’s boot menaced to crush down wounded flesh. Sydney and Mitch were too much of a worry already. “Well, us, no?” His fingers dug on dirt. Dialed the pain slowly, like clockwork. “That’s why we are still here.”

Eli stared, barren and profuse. How easy for them to swap characters at once: now Eli seemed to have age for the first time since he was twenty-two, for the frown burrowed on his forehead; Victor seemed to reclaim the youth worthy of a liar and a student, for he could still smile at him, and him only. 

A glance:

“Next bullet goes through your head.” And then Eli stood farther, back to shovel the end of their deed.

Despite himself, and the pain, Victor chuckled. 

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i missed my bastard kids that i even took the liberty to re-read vicious to write this fic. as you can see based on the limited memory lane, i haven't past page one hundred, thus why they might appear OC, but since it's 2 am, i don't have the heart to care.


End file.
